ANP to back any joint opposition movement

Asfandyar urges military to protect polling stations from outside

PESHAWAR: The ANP on Monday threw its weight behind any move by a joint opposition pertaining to political developments in the country.

This was stated by the Awami National Party (ANP) chief Asfandyar Wali Khan on Monday while answering questions at a news conference in Peshawar.

When asked what his party’s stance was over recent news circulating about former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) founder Nawaz Sharif making contact with former president and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari to launch a protest movement against the incumbent government, the ANP chief said that they would support any move by a joint opposition.

The question came after reports and rumours swirled that Nawaz had sought help from Zardari in strengthening the grand opposition alliance against the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

During his news conference on Monday, Wali also expressed his displeasure over the growing tension between Pakistan and India and condemned the statement issued by the Indian army chief wherein he had threatened Islamabad with ‘retaliation’ over its alleged involvement in last week’s brutal killing of an Indian border guard and policemen in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK).

Wali vowed to do everything for the security of the country.

“We will fight and will sacrifice our lives for this country if it is attacked,” he said while criticising the language used by Prime Minister Imran Khan in his tweet for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Using such language for prime minister of another country is not good,” the ANP chief said, adding that they had hopes of fostering good bilateral relations with all neighbouring countries from the new government but have thus far seen no improvement.

Wali insisted on forging good bilateral relations with all neighbouring countries such as India, Afghanistan and Iran.

“Apart from China, which neighbour do we have good relations with?” he asked, adding that without securing peace in Afghanistan there was no possibility of achieving peace in Pakistan and similarly, there will be no development in Pakistan and if there is no development in Afghanistan.

The ANP chief, though, backed Prime Minister Imran Khan’s announcement to grant nationality to Afghans who were born in and have been living in Pakistan for decades and asked them to ease visa conditions for such Afghans.

“Why can we not provide them with citizenship?” Wali asked, adding, “They were born here. We have given citizenship to all those who migrated from India, why can we not give it to the Afghans who are living here for the last three generations,” he said.

Regarding ANP’s participation in the upcoming by-elections in the wake of threats to party’s leadership, the party chief expressed his anger at the law enforcement agencies for failing to provide adequate security to the party’s leadership despite knowing fully about the possible threats to them.

“We will not leave the field for anyone, irrespective of if we win or lose. ANP can be eliminated from the parliament but no one can kick out ANP from politics,” he said while making a veiled reference to how hardly any candidate from nationalist parties won in the July 25 general elections.

Wali also requested the army chief to keep the army as an institution from controversies associated with the elections.

“I would request the army chief that the army should not be made any more controversial. Whatever happened on July 25 was enough. The army should be there [to protect voters and polling stations] but they should be outside the polling station,” he said, adding, “If you deploy army inside the polling stations then whoever loses will blame them (army) for his defeat.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2018.